If Apple holds the future of computing, I don't want to be a developer (2010)
blog.madhukaraphatak.com
blog.madhukaraphatak.com
> Mobile is the feature
and what a feature it is! But I know you meant "future". And on that, I disagree. it is NOT the future. They aren't going to obsolete PC's. They are a new branch of computing, but PC's are still around and are still the primary content creators, while mobile is primarily geared to consumption.
But I'm glad to be a web developer for many of the reasons you identified. i don't need approval, I can use an array of technologies and techniques to deliver the same end product, and collaborate with others via open source projects or in online forums. It's really a great time to be a webdev.
My eyes glaze over a bit when people talk iOS or android development. I just don't care. The apps I use the most are the ones that came with my phone, and I only use a handful in addition to that. I have no desire to deal with all the BS that's associated with mobile development or trying to turn a profit on the app store. If I launch my side project and it does well, I'll certainly consider native apps if the demand is there. Otherwise I'm quite happy to develop for the web/mobile-web.
Right of the line the value proposition is enhanced by the fact that you can easily differentiate from a sea of crappy free mobile apps and we can communicate directly with our customers with depth and personal engagement.
On iOS we had to deal with such nonsense as not being able to disable multitouch gestures frim the app (and only for the app, not globally). The use case being small children or developmentally disabled children, where multitouch gestures can range from a distraction to a usability nightmare.
Anyhow, this is jut to echo some of what you said about web dev.
Considering you were criticizing the author on his grammar, you made a mistake yourself! "Obsolete" is an adjective, not a verb.
Also, I like your distinction between traditional PCs for creation and mobile for consumption. Mobile devices can do little in the way of content creation, disregarding the simple apps that allow users to change basic properties, such as add a filter to an image. However, I see mobile eclipsing PCs merely because the majority of people have no need to create content and merely would like to consume their favorite media.
That's not quite right. In the context of American English, "obsolete" can be used as a verb.
I do care about my articulation and clarity, so I love these kinds of insights.
Merriam Webster recognizes the verb form of obsolete. The example is from 1936:
> "For radio itself deliberately obsoletes today what it built yesterday." —David Sarnoff, Television, 1936
There's a difference between making a mistake, and just paying no attention at all to grammar or spelling. Wasn't asking for perfect, just that he try.
Yes, I agree with your later point; most people don't need a PC for what they want to do. Or in places like india (as another HN user pointed out) there is huge growth because they're affordable, versus PC's which are not. But people will still need PC's for work, for school, and for play; so it'll be interesting to see the long term effects.
SV is ridiculously trendy and short term. It's not wholly irrational, but a function of how VC works. If growth is under 20% it doesn't exist. That's what they mean when they say PC is dead, etc., and of course mobile will be dead the instant growth dips.
You have a good comment regarding the technology, but wrapping it in with the comment about grammar just added a bunch of noise. Try not doing that next time and see what happens. I guarantee you that the conversation as a whole will be much better.
And, yeah. That whole "mobile is the future" thing really was so 2010. But mobile only turned out to be _part_ of the future. Everyone was so convinced that tiny plastic devices with no keyboards or computing power would supersede decades of awesomeness that was, and continues to be, the personal computer.
"Mobile is the future" didn't pan out, similarly to how today's "enterprise is the future" fad is going to.
Developers should be able to see past all this noise, choose a compromise between what they enjoy doing and what makes money, and go do some cool shit.
Really? Please enlighten me.
A recent mobile phone, such as an iPhone, has approximately the same computing power as Deep Blue when measured in Flops, i.e. the same as a super-computer from 15 years ago. It's about as powerful as a PC from a half decade ago. (And it's currently made of aluminum, rather than plastic.)
Moreover, Apple's iPhone revenue (just the iPhone) is in the same ballpark as the revenue from everything sold by Microsoft.
As for the equipment rate of smart phones, it's steadily growing higher than PC equipment rates. This is particularly true in developing countries and in lower-income segments of the population in developed ones (both groups are Android users for the most part). In both cases, a smartphone is becoming (indeed, has become in the case of the former, since they often skipped the PC step altogether) the main device they use to access the internet.
I'm not really seeing how "mobile is the future" didn't pan out... Please, please, enlighten me.
Part of the future.
More serious work in the arts (imaging, music, architecture, etc.) and sciences is simply a ridiculous suggestion to accomplish on mobile devices. Horsepower, input / output contexts, technological hurdles, and a plethora of other issues make mobile devices simply useless in many of those contexts.
Mobile is a new market, a new branch of computing, so naturally there is going to be a lot of growth there. A lot of people don't need a full-blown PC at home, so a phone that lets them check facebook and read articles covers most of their needs. And as you mentioned with india: computers were simply not affordable for most, but smartphones are. But again, this is just growth potential and untapped markets.
Businesses will still use computers, as will gamers, developers, writers, filmmakers, accountants... and so on. Mobile has helped them, but it hasn't obsoleted PC's. We still need them to create the things to be consumed on mobile devices.
Okay. Try editing a spreadsheet on your iPhone.
I said that mobile is _part_ of the future. It is not _the_ future. But you wouldn't have known that in 2010 when big tech companies were acquiring every tiny little mobile startup they could get their talons into. And then most of their products ended up languishing because none of the big tech companies knew what to do with them.
Those companies didn't see the whole picture, and it seems you still don't either.
(Also, 6 cores at 4.5ghz stomps on your iPhone :)
Computing power doesn't mean a whole lot when the screen is just 4 inches wide and the only way to interact with it's proprietary non-multitasking OS is by poking it with your finger.
> Moreover, Apple's iPhone revenue (just the iPhone) is in the same ballpark as the revenue from everything sold by Microsoft.
Microsoft generally doesn't sell hardware, so I'm unsure how this comparison would be useful.
> As for the equipment rate of smart phones, it's steadily growing higher than PC equipment rates. [...] a smartphone is becoming [...] the main device they use to access the internet.
PC hardware's biggest customer is and always has been business. That's not being replaced by mobile. College kids aren't writing their papers on mobile devices in large numbers. Government agencies aren't switching to mobile devices for their data entry. So in that respect, "mobile is the future" didn't pan out because "the future" is generally expected to wholly replace the "the past" and that is certainly not happening.
> please, enlighten me.
Consider yourself enlightened.
Meh. Maybe mobile and some shit ecosystem like apple is the future for most people. But most people arent into interesting esoteric things. The pc and internet revolutions were started by small groups of some weird people. The fact that something has been embraced by all the 'norms' usually means that thing is not interesting anymore. For example, the internet used to be a crazy, mysterious, lawless place. Now people do their shopping and banking there and governments and big corps are policing it.
If I want download a file on my phone and pipe it into another process, I shouldn't have to download an app that exports everything on the phone for w/e purposes or write one when a simple script would do…
This project hasn't received any updates in a while but so far it has never let me down when I need to do some text processing in my smartphone.
Apple have the killer advantage that the ongoing success of iOS makes them money directly, thus iOS gets improved in and of itself, and not as a gateway drug to something else. This is why they are proving stubbornly effective at holding on to all the valuable parts of the market.
I need a true community around a project which entails a governance model that actually is more open, be it democratic or meritocratic.
I wish the Ubuntu phone and others would catch on faster.
Smart devices need to function without connection to the Internet. With the SPE hack there will be increasing noise about this and it's going to give Apple (especially their P2P protocols) a major boost.
It's also given the "app store" vendors much more control. Previously, that level of control only appeared if you were developing for game consoles.
Sometimes I go over to Hacker Dojo, which is near Google HQ. They have a big, bleak room with overhead industrial mercury-vapor lamps, cheap tables and power outlets, and broken vending machines. People sit there in silence, working on their laptops. They pay about $100 a month for that space. Most think they're writing the next killer app. Most are wrong.
http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
(Of course, iOS users may be outspending Android users, etc.)
In the high-end smartphone world, Apple is king.
It's a bit like TV,where a tv show can have loads of viewers it doesn't matter,advertisers are interested only in a specific demographic.
> Develop in their own hardware and OS
Strictly speaking this is still true, though a Hackintosh isn't hard to setup.
> Closed minds : iPhone SDK policies states that you cannot share what you are making with your fellow
I think something is lost in translation here. You can certainly share code, there is loads of it on github. Perhaps the author is talking about the core iOS source...?
> No choice in language and tools
This may have been true in 2010 but it is not true now, you can write iOS apps in Ruby, Swift, Objective-C, C# and a few other languages. There is also the excellent App Code IDE if you don't like Xcode.
> Big boss has to approve your application in order to reach the users
Sort of, ad-hoc distribution is an option (though a pain in the ass). But if you want to write an app for 10 of your friends, or whatever, you can do so without going through the App Store.
I know, that apple has a ton of money, but the apple tv and the iWatch are not something major. And i don't see them on the front of interesting stuff (cloud, containers, virtual reality, social networks).
How long can they increase the screen of the iphone each year? how long can they let the app store like it was, well, since forever...?
You will miss a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas if you don't put a bit of effort in trying to understand bad grammar, spelling and foreign accents.
Personally, I'd go with Jolla and Sailfish, as now I have N900 with maemo, and I feel the freedom, even after 5 years, it is still the one of the best phones. Communities are what we need, not capitalism.